CMC Market Pulse delivers actionable market insights, giving you all the key narratives and developments you need in under 5 minutes.
Market Overview 📉
Bitcoin (BTC) closed the week 7.1% up, while Ethereum (ETH) had its best week in a while, closing the week up 19.7% from the week prior. Total crypto market cap surged 6.6% from $3.113T to close the week at $3.32T.
The week’s liquidation data started muted, but short liquidations accelerated into the end of the week with almost $1B liquidated in the last 2 days. While funding rates rose slightly, they still maintained at healthy levels in the high single digits to low double digits.
📌 Strategy acquired 1,895 BTC for $180.3M at an average price of $95,167 per Bitcoin. - Link
📌 The EU plans to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy-related cryptocurrencies by 2027, with all transactions above €1,000 to require mandatory customer due diligence. - Link
📌 Bitcoin Magazine CEO, David Bailey, seeks to raise $300M to launch a Bitcoin-focused investment firm to develop the Bitcoin ecosystem. - Link
Why does it matter?
Both crypto and traditional markets continue to absorb bad news and climb higher on positive developments in the trade war situation. The S&P 500 closed the week flat, up 0.01%, while the Nasdaq marginally outperformed, closing up 0.31%.
Notable altcoin outperformers include Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), Mogcoin (MOG), Pudgy Penguins (PENGU), Maple Finance (SYRUP) and Kaito (KAITO).View CMC Gainers & Losers board
Narrative of the Week 📰
Ethereum’s latest upgrade Pectra went live this week, bringing a set of improvements to the Ethereum consensus and execution layer.
📌 Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade goes live on mainnet, bringing to the chain: smart accounts, raised validator limits and increased blob capacity, among others. - Link
📌 Ethereum becomes deflationary for the day, just five hours after the launch of Pectra. - Link
📌 Security researcher, Vladimir, highlights new attack vectors with the new UX improvements from Pectra. - Link
Why does it matter?
Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade seeks to target some of the long-standing issues regarding crypto UX while also setting the stage for future scaling via the L2 roadmap.
Major Project Updates 🗓️
📌 It was recently revealed that Solana had uncovered a zero-day bug on Solana mainnet, which was fixed privately within 48 hours, with the cooperation of >70% of Solana’s validators. - Link
📌 Chainlink introduces Chainlink Rewards a community rewards program enabling Chainlink Build projects expand their reach by distributing their tokens to eligible LINK stakers. - Link
📌 Bybit CEO, Ben Zhou, teases the launch of trading of stock indices, US stocks, gold, crude oil and more on the exchange by the end of Q2 2025. - Link
Why does it matter?
Decentralization maximalists, especially from the Ethereum camp, criticized the lack of decentralization around the way Solana handled the bug, while many others praised the quick handling of the issue with no funds lost.
DeFi Brief 🏦
📌 Prominent Uniswap delegate, 0xPEPO, has stepped down as a Uniswap delegate, voicing his opinion on not being heard by the Foundation. - Link
📌 Hyperliquid announces builder-deployed perpetuals on testnet, which will eventually enable permissionless deployment of perp markets by addresses with at least 1M staked HYPE. Stakes will be slashed for malicious behavior. - Link
📌 Ethena launches USDe on both the Hyperliquid exchange and HyperEVM. - Link
📌 Sui staking protocol, Haedal, announces their buyback program, which will utilize 50% of protocol fees to buy back the HAEDAL token, which will be distributed to veHAEDAL holders as yield. - Link
📌 Jupiter Exchange releases their updated Ultra V2 API, enabling builders to seamlessly integrate their latest Ultra V2 upgrade into their products. - Link
Why does it matter?
One of Uniswap’s loudest delegates has finally stepped away from the protocol, perhaps nailing the metaphorical nail in the coffin for Uniswap’s decentralization.
Meme Coins 🚀
📌 Elon Musk changes his profile picture and X display name to gork, in reference to the memecoin account parodying the xAI chatbot, Grok. - Link
Fundraises 💰
📌 Blockchain infrastructure protocol, Fuze Finance, raises $12M in a Series A funding round led by Galaxy and e& Capital, with support from Further Ventures. - Link
📌 Social engineering defence platform, Doppel, raises $35M in a Series B funding round led by Bessemer, with participation from 9 Yards Capital, Sozo Ventures, a16z and more. - Link
📌 Dogecoin-based app development platform, DogeOS, raises $6.9M in a funding round led by Polychain Capital. - Link
📌 IntoTheBlock and Trident merge to form Sentora, an institution-focused DeFi platform, raising $25M from New Form Capital, Tribe Capital, Ripple and more. - Link
Airdrops Abound 🎁
📌 Solana Name Service (SNS) announces their upcoming airdrop, which will distribute 40% of their total token supply to .sol domain holders, builders and new supporters. - Link
📌 Data-focused L1 blockchain, Space and Time, announces the SXT token and their upcoming airdrop, which will distribute 7.5% of their token supply to their community. - Link
📌 BERA token airdrop claims for users who pre-deposited assets via Boyco are now live. - Link
Tweet of the Week 📝
Source: @0xRacist
Someone remind us again why anyone was bullish on Movement?
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